Friday, 4 January 2013

The writing business

Thursday, January 4th., London.

Came to town yesterday. Lunched with Wells and his two boys, and Ross at the Reform. Ross told me, as regards inaccuracies in "Dict. National Biog.", that he offered to look through the proofs of Wilde's biography, but proofs were never sent to him. He found 18 mistakes of fact in the biography.
Gardiner, editor Daily News, suggested that I should resume writing for D.N. I said I would resume only on similar conditions as before, namely that I had a regular commission for articles, to appear at regular intervals - I didn't mind what the intervals were.

Alfred George Gardiner (1865–1946) was a British journalist and author. His essays, written under the pen-name Alpha of the Plough, are highly regarded. He was also Chairman of the National Anti-Sweating League, a pressure group which campaigned for a minimum wage in industry. He joined the Northern Daily Telegraph in 1887 which had been founded the year before by Thomas Purvis Ritzema. In 1902 Ritzema was named general manager of the Daily News. Needing an editor, he turned to his young protégé to fill the role. The choice soon proved a great success; under Gardiner's direction, it became one of the leading liberal journals of its day, as he improved its coverage of both the news and literary matters while crusading against social injustices. Yet while circulation rose from 80,000 when he joined the paper to 151,000 in 1907 and 400,000 with the introduction of a Manchester edition in 1909, the paper continued to run at a loss.

Vedrenne wrote me giving way, and agreeing to pay £200 down on receipt of MS. of a play for Eadie, for option on it. He had said to Pinker: "I have never paid and I never will pay to read a play."